Just about every Tuesday evening, The Royale’s Matthew Thenhaus hosts an event where he guides you through the wonderful world of beer styles and beer history. This week he’ll be featuring an event he calls: “Hopbombs“. Here’s a quick synopsis of what will be on tap:

Tonight we showcase those stalwarts of the craft scene–the brews that make the geeks go all giggity-giggity–American IPAs.

As Matt is extremely passionate and extremely knowledgeable this is a great opportunity to not only enjoy some great beer, but to learn about just some of the great styles of beer we have available in St. Louis.

Yeah I heard some of that too, Keir. That guy’s a friend of my brother’s and an admitted noobie. He started coming in just to hang with the bro and drink High Life, but I’ve gotten him to say ‘Surprise me’ whenever he needs a beer. He’s still not into the high IBU brews, but he never drinks the cheap stuff anymore and has discovered that he really likes porters and ESBs. Progress!

It’s probably an unpopular opinion, but I kind of feel like the high ABV hop-bombs and imperial brews have set back the craft brewing industry a bit in terms of creativity. No longer are we seeing great session beers with unique twists, now it’s “make it 8% ABV+ and 100 IBUs and you’ve got yourself a winner!!”